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Ramapo to host Holocaust program on Sousa Mendes

March 5, 2017

Joan Arnay Halperin and Monique Rubens Krohn, the daughters of two families rescued by the Portuguese diplomat, Aristides de Sousa Mendes, will tell the story of his unique and heroic accomplishment on Thursday, Mar. 2 at 9:30 a.m. in the Robert A. Scott Student Center, Alumni Lounges (SC157-158) at Ramapo College of New Jersey. The Gross Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies will sponsor this event.

As the Portuguese consul stationed in Bordeaux, France, Sousa Mendes found himself confronted in June of 1940 with the reality of many thousands of refugees outside the Portuguese consulate attempting to escape the horrors of the Nazi war machine. These persons were in desperate need of visas to get out of France, and a Portuguese visa would allow them safe passage through Spain to Lisbon, the capital of Portugal, where they could find liberty to travel to other parts of the globe.

In the end, Sousa Mendes defied his government that was officially neutral, but pro-Nazi at the time, and issued some 30,000 visas, including about 10,000 to Jews, over the period of a few days.

Sousa Mendes’ act of heroism cost him and his family dearly. He was stripped of his diplomatic position and forbidden from earning a living. His children were blacklisted and prevented from attending university or finding meaningful work.

His courage has only been posthumously recognized. The first recognition came in 1966 from Israel’s Yad Vashem, which declared Aristides de Sousa Mendes to be a “Righteous Among the Nations.” In 1986, the United States Congress issued a proclamation honoring his heroic act. s